Title

Numbers vs. Letters: Which Is Easier to Remember?

Problem Scenario

I want to learn about whether or not people's memory is impacted in different ways when they have to remember different speech patterns.
Broad Question
How do the different patterns of speech impact memory?

Specific Question

On average, do people remember number patterns better than letter patterns, or vise versa?

Hypothesis

The number patterns will be remembered more than the letter patterns because the human mind has to memorize so many number patterns in their lives and they are used to memorizing number patterns.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

The letter pattern and the number pattern are both independent variables while the percentage of cards remembered by the person is the dependent variable.

Independent Variable:

The different patterns of speech.

Dependent Variable:

The percentage of cards that the person being tested remembers.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

The amount of time that the people have to wait in between the "before" trial and the "after" trial.

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Long Term Memory- Information stored in the brain and retrievable over a long period of time.
Percentage- A portion of something.
Speech Patterns- A pattern of numbers or letters.

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General Plan

I am going to do my experiment in school because more people are there, and I need as much data as possible. This experiment is hard because I need to rely on other people to give me the data that I need. In this experiment I am going to be testing whether or not people remember letters or numbers better when they look at different patterns of speech. Basically I'm just going to test people by using a before and after trial. In the before trial I will ask them to write down a number or letter pattern twice on a sheet of paper, and hand it in to me. In the after trial which will be a day after the before trial, I will ask them to write down the same pattern as the one they wrote down, without looking at it or hearing me say it. I will then record the percentage of the pattern that is remembered by that student, which will give me my data. A potential problem in this experiment is having to depend on other people though. A lot of people that are able to do the before trial might be absent or unable to do the after trial. This would mean that I wouldn't have as many data points as I thought I would. Also people might not put in as much effort into memorizing the pattern as I would like them too. If people don't try their hardest to remember the patterns then my experiment might as well not even happen because I have to depend on them. Other than that there really aren't any problems with this experiment. The experiment is easy to do and easy to get data. Since I'm really just using paper, pencils, and the person that is writing down what I tell them to write down, there aren't any safety hazards that I'm aware of. I'm not dealing with chemicals or sharp objects or anything, so I see no potential danger to the people that are helping me with my experiment.

Potential Problems And Solutions

There aren't really any potential problems other than the fact that I have to rely on people to do my experiment because I am testing them. It's not a problem that can't be fixed though. I can just test them the day after or when they get back to school if they are absent or unable to do the after trial. People who don't put an effort in are another problem too. If they don't put a good effort into memorizing the pattern and doing their best to write it down than my project might as well not exist. Also, I won't have enough data if I just test the short term memory of the students that are in my science class, but I can't skip my other classes to do my experiment on students in different classes either. My project depends on students, so it will be hard to get the right amount of data that I need. There aren't any huge issues though.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

There aren't any safety hazards that I'm aware of either. I'm not handling anything toxic or harmful to people, so I don't really have to worry about taking any precautions.

Experimental Design

What is your experimental unit?

The percentage of the pattern that is remembered.

Number Of Trials:

9 times for each pattern and class, about 180 times for each individual student.

Number Of Subjects In Each trial:

1. Percentage of letter pattern that is remembered.
2. Percentage of number pattern that is remembered.

Number of Observations:

10

When data will be collected

2/10/13- 2/20/13

Where will data be collected?

Data will be collected in Mr. Groves science classes, in his Team 3 classroom.

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Index Cards	1 package	CVS	$1.29
Pencils	1	Mr. Groves	$0.00
Poster Board	1	Mr. Groves	$5.00
Index Cards	1 package	Mr. Groves	$0.00

Detailed Procedure

1. Gather supplies (pencils, index cards, and people, number pattern, letter pattern.
2. Write the number pattern 4975821 on flash cards (One digit on each card).
3. Have the student that is being tested write their name and block at the top of a blank index card.
4. Hold up the flash cards and after each card have the student repeat the digit that is on the card.
5. Have the student copy down the number pattern that is on the flash cards, onto their index card, after they have seen the entire pattern. This will be called the "before" trial.
6. The next day, 24 hours after the student initially sees and writes down the number pattern, have the same student write down their name and block on the back of the index card they used the day before.
7. Have the student write down the same number pattern that they copied down the day before as best as they can remember, without looking at the pattern. This will be called the "after" trial.
8. Repeat steps 2-6 using the letter pattern HKXLYVA.
9. Count the number of digits that were remembered by each student. The digits remembered will count as cards remembered.
10. Repeat step 9, but this time count the number of letters remembered.
11. Find the percentages of the letter and number patterns remembered by the students.
12. Record results into a data table and analyze data.

Diagram

Photo List

I will take pictures of students taking the memory test in the classroom and have pictures of diagrams of the memory used in other experiments that might relate to my experiment.

Time Line

February 1- Finish wiki up to timeline
February 10- Start experiment
February 20- Finish experiment
February 21- Analyze data
February 28 - Start writing background research, conclusion, and abstract.
March 3- Finish wiki
March 3- Start poster board
March 10- Finish Poster Board
March 29- Science Fair

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Results

All Raw Data

Number Pattern


Letter Pattern

Graphs

Photos

Number Pattern Used in Experiment

Letter Pattern Used in Experiment

Testing the students with the number pattern.

Student writing down pattern on note card.

Data Analysis
My data shows that the percentage of cards remembered of the number pattern was higher than the percentage remembered of the letter pattern by about 20%.

Conclusion

On average, people remembered number patterns about 20.05% better than they remembered letter patterns, with the average percentage of the number pattern remembered being 39.3% while the average percentage of letter pattern remembered was just 19.25%.

Discussion

My data shows that on average people remembered number patterns about 20.05% better than they remembered letter patterns. Because the number patterns were proven to be remembered better, my hypothesis is right. It only made sense that the number patterns would be remembered better than the letter patterns because people have to remember number patterns every day for things like pass codes, telephone numbers, and even things like the date. However, people also use letter patterns too, because pass codes are often used in the form of letters and spelling alone is really just remembering letters in a certain order. Before I started my experiment I had no idea which pattern would be remembered more than the other because it could have gone either way, so I was surprised nicely when my results showed that the number pattern was remembered better by more people than the letter pattern.
During my experiment I encountered the issue of relying on people to do my experiment. I had to make sure that whomever I was testing would be in school the next day because my experiment ran over the course of two days.
My experiment can lead to many other experiments too. Not only can different patterns be tested, like shapes or words, but short term memory can also be tested. My experiment can branch out into a whole plethora of others.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

My experiment is very beneficial to the community because people memorize number patterns and letter patterns every day. Because there are so many of those patterns, people can often forget patterns over the course of time or confuse them with other patterns. If people knew that number patterns were easier to remember than letter patterns, number patterns could be used more than letter patterns to make it easier for people to remember.
Science is also benefited from my experiment because so many different experiments can branch out from this one. This experiment could raise questions and other experiments that could be far more beneficial to the community.

Background Research

This project was pretty straightforward and easy to understand, but there were still a few things that needed to be cleared up. I wanted to know what long term memory is and the different types of it and I wanted to know about previous memory tests that were used.
One of the things that I wanted to learn about was long term memory itself. So, I asked myself "What is long term memory?" I did a little researching and I found out that long term memory is anything that happened to you more than a few minutes ago. Long term memories aren't constant either, so they aren't reliable. This is because you often revisit the memory over time by connecting it with another memory or something that just happened to you. Also, long term memory is in many different forms. Two of these forms are implicit and explicit. Implicit is things that you remember without thinking about, like swimming or riding a bike. Explicit memories are memories that you consciously think of, like an event that has happened or a specific fact.
Another thing I wanted to research was different types of long term memory tests that have been used before. I discovered that in 1975, Bahrick et al tested 400 people between the ages of 17 and 74. He used a free recall test where the person would try to remember people in a graduate class and a photo recognition test. He also used a name recognition test. The results of his tests showed that the photo and name recognition tests had the best results while the free recall test had the worst results.
The last thing I really wanted to research was a good way to memorize number and letter patterns. Although I didn't find much for remembering letters there is an actual method for remembering numbers. The method is called the Phonetic Number System. The Phonetic Number System basically just takes the number you are trying to remember and turns it into a letter. The number's letter is somehow connected in one way or another. For example the number 5 is turned into the letter L. The connection between L and 5 is when you hold out your left hand with the thumb out, your hand looks like an L, and when you add the thumb to the other four fingers of your hand, it ads up to 5. The Phonetic Number System is successfully used to remember very large numbers.
All of the research that I did helped me to better understand my project and allowed me to really get an idea of what the big picture of my experiment was. This research helped me to connect with my experiment more too.

References

"Long-Term Memory." Brain Training Software, Brain Fitness, Brain Games, BrainHQ. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.

"Long Term Memory." Long Term Memory. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.


"Remembering Numbers." Memory-Improvement-Tips.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.


N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.

Abstract

I first thought of my question when I was looking at a previous experiment someone else had done. As I was looking at that experiment I couldn't help thinking about the things that I would have changed or improved, and I started to realize that I was branching out from that experiment to make my own. That whole thought process gave me my question: On average do people remember number patterns better than letter patterns or vice versa? I started to plan my experiment and decided that I should make it run over the course of a two day time period to make the memorization long term. I also decided to test the students individually instead of in a large group, because I wanted them to be focused and serious about memorizing the patterns.I had each student go into a quiet room and held up the cards in front of them. After each card I had the student recite the digit on the card. After all of the cards were shown I had the student write down the pattern. The next day I had the student write down the same pattern, except without looking at the cards. I then counted the number of cards remembered by the student and turned that number into a percentage so that it would be easy to graph. After I had tested 20 students with letter patterns and number patterns I analyzed my data. After analyzing my data I was able to see that my hypothesis was correct. I also learned that people remember number patterns about 20% more than they remember letter patterns. I personally think that this experiment was interesting and was well done overall.